Alex Lee

Theme or 6 traits Identification:

Case In Point: Within this section, from Chapter 9 to 12 a common theme of inevitability can be witness within the case of Lucy.

Since the time Lucy is bitten by Count Dracula, the protagonists within the novel Dracula by Bram Stoker continually battle with the unseen force in order revive Lucy and prevent her from further blood loss. They do this in a number of ways such as giving her blood transfusion and placing garlic around Lucy's bed. However the theme of inevitably comes in when every attempt to ward off the vampire fails and culminates not only in the death Lucy, but also her mother. This is due to the fact that every technique implemented by the protagonists fails in some unique way. For one, when they first place garlic flowers within Lucy's room her own mother removes them and also opens the window to Lucy's bedroom, nearly indirectly killing. Also, every time her former suitors give Lucy their blood it mysteriously disappears. It seems that all the characters' actions are playing into the Count's hands as one they when a wolf breaks into Lucy's room it frightens Lucy's mom to death and the mistresses knock themselves out by drinking wine with sleep potion in it.



Critical Passage:
"What am I to do? God shield me from harm this night! I shall hide this paper in my breast, where they shall find it when they come to lay me out. My dear mother gone! It is time that I go too." (133, Dracula)
For all the progress on the part of the Victorian society in the end they fail to save Lucy from her sad fate of falling prey to Count Dracula.



Literary Devices:
1. Simile: "But the sound of the nightingale seemed like the voice of my dead mother come back to comfort me." (132, Dracula)

Here when Lucy mentioning how she believes the Nightingale it is mostly to comfort herself that although her mother is dead, her spirit lives on.

2. Imagery: "The room and all around seemed to spin round. Ikept my eyes fixed on the window, but the wolf drew his head back, and a whole myriad of little specks seemed to come blowing through the broken window, and wheeling and circling round like the pillar of dust that travelers describe when there is a simoon in the desert." (129, Dracula)

The imagery that Bram Stoker uses here effectively conveys the chaos of the situation as various events such as the death of Lucy's mother, the barging in of the wolf, and Lucy's pain effectively melds together from the vivid descriptions that are present here. There is also a simile how the events here are similar to that of a simoon.


Reflection:
Overall, I believe the literary circle went quite well during this section. If we had any way of improving the debate activity we could have had a more debatable topic and maybe even some prizes in order to goad the audience into better participation. Through debate and by forcing people to take up a certain stance, I believe it was quite educational due to the fact that it allowed for the students to take up new view points and defend them thereby opening up their mindsets and previous conceptions. During the Socratic Seminar we also got much more activity out of our audience as the they participated in discussion. I personally believe that this occurred due to the fact that the students now had a chance to participate in field of topic that they were comfortable with. Our presentation on the Themes and Key passages was a little dry for our tastes and the atmosphere of the students listening slightly showed that fact.